Living In Thailand Blog
Thursday 8th May 2008
Many aspects of Thai culture are quite wonderful and the world would be a much more pleasant place if all countries adopted them but the culture can also be inhibiting at times and result in some strange behaviour.
Several months ago, a friend of mine asked if I would photograph her sister's wedding. To be honest, I don't like weddings and I don't like the responsibility that comes with photography in any official capacity (especially wedding photography) but I agreed because I wanted to help her out.
She was quite panicky at first and asked me repeatedly to confirm that I could do it. I told her yes every time. The wedding is next week but just recently she hasn't asked me to confirm; in fact, she hasn't spoken about the wedding at all.
I called in to see her today to ask about the arrangements for next week. We started to sort things out but then she dropped into the conversation that she has hired someone to do the photography.
When I asked why, she told me she had noticed I had been very busy recently. That is true but the work that was making me busy has finished so now I am OK. I always knew I would be free around the time of the wedding so it was never a problem but she didn't want to impose on me.
The words she used - greng jai are a key part of Thai culture. Thais like to show consideration for other people and one way they can do that is by not disturbing or imposing upon them.
It sounds reasonable enough; to some extent all decent and well-mannered people would do the same thing but in Thailand it can go to extremes. My friend has now paid out what is a significant amount of money for her to get a photographer when I would have done it for free.
Sometimes students will not ask their teachers questions because of greng jai even though they are paying their teachers to teach them and to answer their questions.
I can normally sense a greng jai moment and I tell whoever that there is no need for it, "Mai dtong greng jai," but this decision was made in my absence so I couldn't do anything about it.
Just being aware of the culture can sometimes explain behaviour from Thais that seems a little unusual.
Regardless of how many times I see something in Thailand, there are certain things that I will never regard as being quite normal.
While eating lunch yesterday, a ladyboy breezed past with the usual effete air of the species. He was taller than me, which is quite unusual for Thais, and had a very masculine face. He was obviously male. However, his hair was tied up at the back of his head, he wore women's clothes, and he was trying so hard to be a girl that he obviously wasn't.
You might expect this kind of thing in a trendy New York night club or the Bohemian quarter of a large, cosmopolitan city but this was in the food court at Carrefour in a conservative area of provincial Thailand.
This is what amazes me, along with the fact there are so many of them, and also that the Thais don't bat an eyelid. It's actually really nice to live amongst such tolerant people but no matter how many times I see the same sight, it will always seem a little bizarre.
I'm fairly happy living in Thailand but every year - approaching visa time - I find myself having to make contingency plans in the event I get unceremoniously booted out of the country.
Up until a couple of years ago, it wasn't a problem living in Thailand without a visa. You could do endless 30 day border runs and no one cared. However, since all the new regulations came into force, that is no longer possible.
I can't blame the Thai authorities for making the changes they did because there was a big problem with undesirable farangs in the country and something had to be done. The problem now is that for foreigners of good character who are financially independent but under 50, it can be difficult for them to stay.
It needn't take someone very long to earn enough money to live out the rest of their days fairly comfortably in Thailand and there must be lots of people 30 or younger in that position. A few good years in a City dealing room or working for a big investment bank would do it - and Christiano Ronaldo could earn enough playing just three games of football.
This year is a little different for me in that I know for sure my current teaching contract will end. Unlike the past couple of years, there will be no more extensions.
What is kind of ironic is that although I need to find work in order to secure another visa and work permit extension, there is no shortage of demand for my services. The problem is that individuals cannot give me the paperwork I need and small language institutes don't seem to want to make any long term commitments.
Students want me to help them one-to-one and small institutes are happy to offer me short term courses whenever they have students but that isn't what I want or need. I guess that finding work at a Thai school would be a longer term prospect but after my experience of working in one Thai school, I never want to step inside another.
In the event that nothing suitable comes up workwise, what are my options?
Visitors to Thailand are now allowed to stay 90 days in the country in any six month period so I could maintain a base in Thailand but spend half the year elsewhere. I don't know where though because nowhere I can think of has quite the same appeal as Thailand. Until I travel more though, I will never know. There may be somewhere else I love but I haven't discovered it yet.
As far as I am aware, the UK Hull Consulate is still issuing one-year non-O visas fairly readily but I don't really want to go back to the UK if I can help it, and it will be a very expensive trip if I do.
An education visa would kill two birds with one stone. I would love to increase my Thai language skills and the visa would allow me to stay in the country. I've looked into this a little though and the schools I have found that seem familiar with the visa application process are only based in Bangkok or Pattaya.
At a push, I would consider living in the capital but it would take a team of wild horses to get me anywhere near Pattaya and even then the horses wouldn't have an easy task. Or perhaps I could find a suitable school that would provide the necessary paperwork elsewhere in the country? Living in a Thai tourist resort is just not an option for me, especially one full of sex tourists and prostitutes.
Marriage is another alternative but a fairly drastic one that could solve one problem and create lots more. There is only one girl I know of in the entire country at the moment that I would consider marrying but she is so utterly perfect and so far out of my league, I'd stand a better chance of playing for Man United.
As a farang, the Thai girls available to me are normally the ones that Thai men aren't particularly interested in but with her that is definitely not the case. She's got everything. The most amazing looks, perfect manners, a Master's degree education; and she's a lovely, well brought up girl from a good family.
In short, she's the kind of girl that every decent Thai man would desire (many of whom are nice guys and have plenty of money) and therefore, there is no need for her to compromise with a farang.
What has surprised me this time round with the visa issue is how little I care about it this year. In many ways, I think I have become a little too settled and complacent, and it might actually be a good thing for me to be forced to make a change.
I imagine that in a couple of years time I will apply for a Thai retirement visa so now might be a good time to go off and see a few other countries before that happens.
There's a fine line in life between stability and drudgery. In some ways I like the comfort and security of knowing where I will be next year but, in other ways, I don't want to know exactly where I will be and what I will be doing in the future because it is boring.
My ultimate goal is to try to get the best of both worlds by having a permanent, comfortable and secure base from which I make constant short-term excursions. It's a goal that's achievable in the not too distant future, provided the next couple of years go to plan.
Wednesday 7th May 2008
You have to feel for the people of Burma. To be hit by another natural disaster when they already have enough man-made hardships in life is sickening. According to The Nation, five of the farm states hit by Cyclone Nargis produce 65% of the country's rice.
With rice prices already at record highs, this will only add to the country's problems. It is good to see that Thailand and other countries that trade with Burma are sending food, water and medical supplies.
A little disappointing though is that Singapore (according to The Nation) is only sending $200,000. The enormously cash-rich, resource-poor island state has close trading ties with Burma which it needs in order to obtain natural resources. Singapore doesn't even have enough sand for its own construction and land reclamation projects so has to import sand from Burma after Indonesia refused to export any more sand.
Singapore can afford to spend billions and billions on casinos, Formula 1 races, huge observation wheels, and other tourist attractions. It can afford to bail out stricken US and European banks with massive cash loans but it can only find $200,000 to give to desperately poor people from a country it relies on very much; people who will now be fighting for their lives.
With a capacity of 784 people, each paying SG$29.50 (almost US$22 at current exchange rates), the Singapore Flyer observation wheel would only have to rotate 12 times in a six hour period to make in excess of US$200,000. Is this really the best Singapore can do?
Tuesday 6th May 2008
Iss is back for a few days and yesterday I gave her some money for her birthday which fell last month. We went out and she bought a couple of books. There was a time when any money I gave her would have been spent on clothes, shoes or cosmetics. However, I have observed a remarkable change in her over the last few years.
She wants for very little now and her mood is also a lot more balanced these days. She has never been an unpleasant person but she is certainly a much better person than the girl I first met.
There were some nightmarish times in the first year that we met. She admits now that she was very selfish then and only thought of herself. When she met a farang (me) she acted as if her winning lottery ticket had just come up.
I received a list of all the things she wanted, along with an ultimatum that if these things weren't delivered, she would leave. Not falling for any of this, I was happy for her to leave but when she didn't get her own way she changed tactics.
Instead of trying to pressurise me with veiled threats, she resorted to sobbing all the time and made herself so ill that she ended up in hospital twice.
At the beginning of 2007, she went home and never came back on a permanent basis. Our relationship changed forever but the affection between us now is stronger than ever. I have never experienced such a relationship before and the only way to describe it is like having a little sister who I think the world of.
Her newly acquired obsession with reading has helped a great deal with the process of making her happier and more contented in life, and I can claim some responsibility for this. She must also have noticed that I don't crave things all the time.
She told me this morning that when she was very young she liked to read but later in life she regarded books as expensive so stopped reading. When we first met, the only things she read were the type of magazines that just make young girls who are already dissatisfied in life even more dissatisfied.
She saw that I read a lot and this encouraged her to do the same. Instead of only being wrapped up in her own little world, she started to get other ideas into her head. She also told me today that many Thais don't read and this is something I have observed myself.
When I ask students what they did the previous evening or weekend, I invariably hear the same replies. They sleep, watch TV, listen to music, or play games. Occasionally, one will admit to reading a book but then I find out that what they meant by 'book' was really a Japanese-style comic.
I was chatting about this with the Canadian guy I met last year who lives in Thailand. Like me, there was nothing he liked more than getting his head inside an encyclopedia or atlas. I used to spend hours as a kid just looking through atlases and acquiring more knowledge about the world.
He saw that his two adopted teenage Thai daughters had no interest in such things whatsoever so tried to encourage them to read and learn.
I always object to Thais using the verb 'play' when describing using the Internet. I use it - among other things - to communicate, to manage my finances, and to find information. It is a great resource when doing lesson planning.
Some of my time spent on the Internet isn't exactly necessary but I wouldn't describe anything I do as 'playing'. To many young Thais though (not all), it is just a big game and World of Warcraft will always be a far bigger draw than Wikipedia.
I find this a bit sad but they can change their ways if given enough encouragement. My Canadian friend was making progress with his daughters and the change in Iss has been nothing less than remarkable.
Love him or hate him, there is never a dull moment when Thaksin is around. Thaksin asks Manchester City players to bow. A City insider was quoted as saying, "At first we thought it was a joke, but the owner was serious about the players paying their respects. It's just not going to happen."
No, not a joke. Respect in Thailand's strictly hierarchically structured society is not earned; it is taken for granted by 'big people'. People at the top of the pyramid get so used to others paying them respect that after a while they expect the same treatment from everyone - whether they deserve it, or not.
Thaksin's ego is the size of a planet and he considers everyone else below him so, on his part, this is definitely not a joke. What is surprising though is that after all his time in England, he hasn't yet figured out how British society is structured.
Hot on the heels of that piece of news is the news that City fans are staging a revolt against their club owner's decision to sack Sven. Hey, Thaksin, leave our Sven alone : Man City fans
Again, for anyone who has followed Thaksin's career, this comes as absolutely no surprise. His target for Thailand achieving first world status was eight years; his target to completely eradicate poverty in the country was (if I remember correctly) five years; and he was going to solve the southern insurgency problems in six months.
I would hazard a guess that he had probably given Sven about a year to win the Premier League, FA Cup and Champion's League. With City slipping down the table, the manager's position was always going to be in jeopardy.
In an attempt to placate fans he has promised another big name manager but if that manager doesn't deliver the goods immediately, he will go the same way. It has taken a while but it seems that slowly City fans are starting to understand how he operates.
City fans would do well to read 'Thaksin - The business of politics in Thailand' by Pasuk Phongpaichit and Chris Baker.
In the book they will discover exactly how Thaksin got his breaks in the police force (through marriage); how he got his first big business break after a long string of business failures (by securing a computer contract for a private computer leasing company he owned from the same police department in which he worked as an employee); how he made as much wealth in five years as it took other wealthy families to make in three generations (by using whatever methods were necessary to obtain monopolistic government telecommunications concessions - combined with the Thai government's failure to provide phone networks); and how it was that his telecommunications company came through the Asian financial crisis of 1997 relatively unscathed compared to competing companies who suffered huge financial losses.
You can draw your own conclusions but bear in mind that Thanong Bidaya, Thaksin's foremost financial adviser and former employee, was finance minister at the time the baht was floated - and subsequently devalued - and knew about the decision a week before it was announced.
Thai companies that had borrowed foreign currency loans before the float (when the baht was pegged to the US dollar) got Bt25 for each dollar loaned but by early 1998, they had to find Bt53 to repay each dollar of the loan, thus doubling their indebtedness.
Obviously, anyone who had been given prior knowledge of what was about to happen could have taken measures to lessen the impact of what happened to the Thai baht on 2 July 1997 and - quite by coincidence - the Asian financial crisis of 1997 marked the point at which Thaksin's fortunes really began to soar.
With so many people facing bankruptcy after the crisis, anyone who still had cash could acquire land and companies at bargain basement prices.
Another interesting fact is who was minister for transport and communications in 1986 and who took it upon himself to start pushing these agencies to open up new projects to private investment; the type of private investment which would later turn Thaksin into a multi-billionaire.
The man's name was Samak Sundaravej - who is currently installed as Thailand's puppet prime minister - and no prizes for guessing who installed him in the first place and who continues to pulls his strings.
All the facts are in black and white and this book was published in 2004 so English football supporters shouldn't really have any excuses for not knowing a little more about the man and how he operates.
Monday 5th May 2008
Another small restaurant business near to where I live has just closed down after opening about nine months ago. Prior to being a restaurant, it was a laundry but that little venture only lasted for about six months.
I see small businesses opening and closing all the time in Thailand and some have belonged to Thai friends of mine. They close because they aren't economically viable.
I once read that if you want to be an employee, go to Europe or North America, and if you want to be an employer, go to Asia. This is good advice.
When Iss (my ex-girlfriend and now my combined best friend and little sister) was working in a salon, she was treated almost like a slave. She went to work in the morning and came home after the last customer had left - sometimes after midnight.
She was paid on a commission basis only which was great for her boss. The boss always had staff available in case any customers came in but didn't have to pay her staff if customers didn't arrive.
This is why so many Thais want to have their own business and be their own boss. However, they get so excited about the prospect of not having to work for someone else, they fail to see the big picture.
On a couple of occasions, Iss wanted me to help her financially so she could go into joint-ownership of a salon. She was very excited about the prospect. When I looked at it more analytically, though, I wasn't as excited for several reasons.
Firstly, the town is saturated with salons. Secondly, the salon trade down in deep southern Thailand relies heavily on Malaysian weekend tourists and it is very unpredictable. Sometimes there are more customers than the salons can cope with but at other times, the staff just sit around doing nothing all day. Also, it only takes a minor terrorist incident for the whole trade to dry up for several months.
The Malaysian tourists don't go very far but stay in the centre of town. In order for a business to get customers it needs to be in that same central location but rents there are very high.
Another problem is that prices for many services are too cheap. I have watched Iss take an hour to shampoo and dry a Thai girl's long hair and only charge Bt80 or something stupid.
Many of the salons also do foot massage and there is money to be made there. Thai construction workers and those working in rice fields may only get paid Bt150 a day but thanks to price fixing cartels, Thais doing foot massage can earn Bt250 an hour.
I figured that if she went ahead, she could probably make a small profit but it would require her working every waking hour. She's a very hard worker but I didn't want her working all the time. I voiced my concerns and the idea was forgotten about.
More often than not, foreign men in Thailand get involved with poorer Thai girls. It doesn't take a genius to work out that if a pretty young Thai girl had money, she wouldn't be with an old, bald farang who can't see his own genitalia without the aid of a mirror.
There are lots of good hearted men though and it is only natural for them to want to improve the life of the girl they are with. However, some caution is advised.
Salon work is popular with those poorer girls who do not wish to sell their bodies and the dream of many is to have their own salon. Some girls get their wish but it doesn't always turn out how their benefactor may want it to.
One Thai girl I knew was set up with a small salon business by her Thai boyfriend but she never opened the shop to paying customers. She, her sisters, and her friends spent all day playing with each other's hair, makeup and clothes or did other things such as watching TV or shopping.
Two other girls I have heard about had salons set up by their English and Singaporean boyfriends but then sold the businesses for much less than they were worth and ran off with the money into the arms of their Thai boyfriends.
A Singaporean guy I knew with an Isaan wife set up an Internet shop in her home village so that her family could earn some money. However, just like the girl I mentioned above, the shop was never opened to paying customers. They let their family and friends play games all day for free.
I met a farang guy recently who was a successful businessman before he came to Thailand and was involved in business development. He took a very professional approach with trying to help his wife's family by organising meetings and using a whiteboard and various business techniques.
He asked them for business ideas which he said he would evaluate and he was willing to fund anything he thought would work. The results were fairly predictable.
The first thing with low educated Thais is that there isn't much imagination. They can't think of anything different other than what they see every day. The second thing is that with a farang as the paymaster, they quickly work out what they can get out of it for themselves.
The first idea was a fruit stall (what was that I said about no imagination?). OK, you buy fruit, cut it up on a stall and sell it. When he asked how much was needed to set up this particular venture he was told Bt250,000. When he asked for a breakdown, it couldn't be given. Perhaps to get more business than other fruit vendors, they wanted a fruit stall with gold plated wheels?
The second idea (from his father-in-law) was selling ice. He looked into this and a proper industrial scale ice-making machine was, I think, about Bt300,000. This idea had some merit but there was a slight drawback.
The father-in-law also wanted a brand new pickup truck so he could deliver the ice personally. Of course, this expense could not be justified. It completely blew the business plan out of the water and therefore this idea was also dropped.
I'm not saying it is impossible to set up a poor Thai in business and for them to make a success of it but those Thais who are business-minded normally have businesses already.
It's a fantastic gesture for a farang to try to help his wife's poor family in a constructive way by setting up a business but in many cases it will just be seen as yet another way of extracting money from a 'rich', naive foreigner.
My best advice is to remember the old adage about only investing in Thailand what you can afford to lose.
Sunday 4th May 2008
There are far more Thais in higher education than I ever realised before I started working at a Thai university. What has become apparent, though, is that there are very different reasons and motivations for students to further their education.
The motivation for undergraduates is obvious. Without a Bachelor's degree, they aren't going to get any kind of a job worth doing. Even with a degree, nothing is guaranteed.
The Nation published some statistics which said that of the 700,000 Thais that graduate each year, 300,000 are unable to find work. Having a degree doesn't necessarily mean anything but it is the blanket requirement in today's world.
In any upmarket Thai hotel or department store you will probably find that most of the staff are far better qualified (on paper) than the foreign tourists they serve.
One girl I met a few years ago told me she had graduated and owned a laundry business. I went to meet her a few times at her 'business'. Her framed degree certificate was proudly displayed but what she hadn't mentioned before was that it was a one-woman business. She may have had a degree and a business but, in reality, she washed other people's socks and ironed their shirts.
Some Master's degree students I know work full-time, doing real work. In the case of the nurses I know studying for Master's degrees who work in Intensive Care and Accident & Emergency units, their work is very real.
They spend all their spare time studying and what they learn makes them better at their jobs. This is highly commendable.
However, some people (the ones who can afford it) seem to choose to stay within the safe confines of academia because they are afraid of the harsh reality of the outside world.
One of my mature students told me that her daughter has just graduated. I asked what she was going to do next and was told she is going to do another Bachelor's degree. I have met other Thais with two Bachelor's degrees.
For many, the standard route is Bachelor's degree, followed by an assistant lecturer's post and Master's degree, followed by a PhD, and then they go into lecturing to complete the circle. One lecturer I know has two PhDs and wanted to do a third but wasn't allowed to.
If students get a government assisted scholarship to study abroad they are then committed to work as lecturers in Thai universities after they return home for twice as long as they were abroad. If they don't, then they have to pay back the money and this can be a considerable amount.
Another one of my students told me that her husband did an MBA and that all the lecturers were younger than the students. What was also very significant was that the students had business experience whereas the lecturers didn't.
She agreed fully with my observations. Her view was that the campus is a safe environment compared to the outside world, and also that it is a pleasant, polite environment. Her example (not mine) was that on campus people queue if they want something whereas outside it is a free-for-all.
It's actually quite a shame because there are some very clever people in Thai universities but they aren't being fully utilised. Not only are they clever, but Thai students also tend to have very high moral values.
They would be a great asset to Thai business but more than anything I would love to see more clever, ethical, young Thais entering the grubby world of Thai politics.
Another unfortunate side-effect of this unbalanced attitude towards gaining certificates and pieces of paper is that Thais who have never experienced the real world can only measure other people by their academic achievements.
I was turned down for a job teaching very basic English at a university law faculty last year because I didn't have a degree in law and a PhD. As it turned out, this worked out well for me but at the time I was quite annoyed with their pathetic justification. People who are in the system too long just lose touch with reality.
Something else that I find annoying is elitist Thais who never let other people forget they have a PhD. I think I will throw up the next time a Thai tells me their name and insists on prefixing it with Dr.
Getting a PhD isn't an easy process and requires a lot of work but some of the theses I have proofread have been pretty abstract. I have lots of respect for people working in the medical profession who write theses in their specialist fields but don't appreciate Thais looking down their noses at me who, for example, researched the effect of global warming on earthworm reproduction for their PhD and then insist on me calling them doctor.
As happened to me at the law faculty, there are now plans being put in place by the government to introduce ridiculous new requirements for foreign English teachers in the country. This is a country in which many of the most highly qualified people in the land cannot construct a correct English sentence and in which general English skills are appallingly low.
It is also a country in which teaching is not a very well paid profession and where immigration requirements are getting tougher all the time.
If I were a few years younger, I might be concerned about what is coming down the pipeline but I don't have too long to go to the magic 50 and eligibility for a retirement visa. It doesn't bode well for Thailand though in a world where English language skills continue to be vitally important.
I agree that something had to be done to address the problem of bad foreigners who were in Thailand for all the wrong reasons and who were 'teaching' just to fund their disgusting lifestyles but the Thai authorities do have a tendency to overreact when solving problems.
Not having a TV, I popped out last night to watch the Happy Hammers on their annual outing to Old Trafford. As usual, I was only person getting excited about any West Ham action in a bar full of Man U 'supporters' (I use the term lightly).
One of the standard conversations I have in Thailand with young males goes along the following lines. Upon finding out I am English, they ask if I like football and they tell me they like Man U or Liverpool. They then ask who I support.
As soon as I tell them West Ham their faces go blank because I didn't say Man U, Liverpool, Chelsea or Arsenal. Nowadays - for obvious reasons - they are familiar with Man City but not many other teams register.
It's the same in Singapore and, from what I can make out, the same all across Asia. On TV last night, I spotted advertising hoardings at Old Trafford for Man U's Japanese web site. A while ago, I realised why Beckham and his missus are so popular in Asia, especially Japan. The anime style cartoon characters in the comics so beloved by Asians look just like Posh and Becks. They are cartoon characters in human form.
What Asians can't seem to comprehend is that the football team farangs support is not a choice but an accident of birth. If you triangulated where I was brought up in East Ham, just off the Barking Road, and the homes of both sets of grandparents - one in East Ham and the other in Forest Gate, the resulting location wouldn't be too far from the centre circle at Upton Park.
If only Thais realised how much suffering is involved supporting West Ham, then they might realise that it couldn't possibly have been a voluntary choice.
Saturday 3rd May 2008
Balance is so important in life. My old life in the UK wasn't at all balanced but was tilted far too heavily on the side of work. When I first came to Thailand, it went the other way. I didn't work for about the first six months but that wasn't balanced either.
After I got into a working routine, I found just about the right balance. I realised that working three days a week was just about perfect. With four days off, I have a day to do nothing, a day to do what I must do, a day to do what I should do, and a day to do what I want to do.
However, in the last couple of weeks - as a result of doing some extra work - the balance disappeared once more. I enjoyed the work, and the money always comes in useful, but it was a big relief to finish today because so many other areas of my life had started to be neglected.
When people ask me why I live in Thailand, I am sure a few (maybe many) have their own preconceived ideas - based on the only stereotypes of Thailand they know - but they would be very wrong.
A more accurate reason would be that living in Thailand allows me to have more balance in my life because of the cheaper cost of living. The cost of living in many Western countries is such that it would not be possible to live well while working only a little. And once we starting working a lot, in order to survive, the balance goes straight away.
Friday 2nd May 2008
Despite being very busy at the moment (and despite the weather being very hot again), I have been making frequent visits to the local temple to visit my rescued cat. Every day, in fact.
She was doing fine and seemed to have settled in well. She wasn't eating the food that the monks gave out so I had been taking food and I also gave some food to the monks with which to feed her. The plan was just to get her strong enough so that she could compete with the other cats for food.
On my visit this evening, there was no sign of my cat. After searching for a while, I bumped into one of the monks who very nonchalantly told me the cat is dead. A dog killed her this morning. He said it wasn't one of the resident temple dogs but a dog that came in from outside. Mai bpen rai. He told one of the nuns and she just smiled. I didn't really feel like smiling.
It is the second cat I have met to have died in the jaws of a dog. Another died after eating rat poison but most of the cats I have known in Thailand that were killed prematurely were hit by cars and motorbikes. Thailand isn't the greatest country to be a cat.
The poor creature. After being abandoned by its mother, it was tormented by a young kid who regarded it as a toy. It was then taken to a temple by a strange foreigner where, after a few days, it was killed by a dog. Oh well, at least I tried to give it a chance in life.
I am now used to the casual attitudes towards death in Thailand but, even so, I still find it difficult to come to terms with. It's not just animals, but people too.
I hadn't been living in Thailand very long when one of the girls on reception at the first place I stayed at went missing for a few days. When she came back, she looked the same as normal but when I asked her where she had been she casually remarked that one of her parents (I can't remember which one) had died. She didn't look particularly upset, and instead of crying she was smiling as usual.
In Western countries a lot more is done to regulate new life and to protect that new life when it arrives. Pet ownership is taken fairly seriously and pets are given lots of protection. Lots of measures are taken to protect human life too.
In Thailand, it is entirely different. To kill any form of life is a big Buddhist sin but I was told on one occasion that it is also a sin to sterilise animals. They breed unchecked, therefore, but - as a result - there are kittens and puppies everywhere.
With so many animals, the Thais aren't interested in keeping them so the animals fend for themselves as best they can. Of course, the ones that get abandoned shortly after birth are too young to fend for themselves so many die.
With regard to protecting human life, Thai laws are pretty much the same as elsewhere but they aren't enforced. Many road deaths could be prevented with tougher enforcement but it is as if no one is really bothered.
In the first year of living in Thailand, I probably heard about more deaths than in all my previous years. Everyone seems to know close friends or relatives who have been killed in road accidents and many of my young students have lost parents. In England, I never knew anyone who had been killed in a road accident.
There is an old lady who works where I work and I have seen her around town on her own. I didn't know anything about her so I asked some of my students. It turns out she lost her entire family - her husband and two sons - at the same time in a road accident.
Coming from a Western culture, this can be very difficult to come to terms with. So, why is it?
I can only believe that it has to do with Buddhist thinking where death isn't as final as it is in Western cultures, and where there is a constant cycle of birth, death and rebirth.
Buddhist philosophy teaches that attachment is dangerous because nothing in this world is permanent. To remember this, beautiful lotus flowers are offered at the temple and quite deliberately allowed to wither and die. In this way, they remind people of the impermanent nature of life.
Some Buddhist monks perform corpse meditation where they contemplate actual cadavers or photos of dead people.
By taking so many measures to protect and preserve life in the West, do we interfere with the natural cycle of life and death and, by doing so, do we deceive ourselves about the truth of impermanence?
It's yet another aspect of living in Thailand to which I have no answers. All I know is that coming from a Western culture into this one, I still find it very difficult dealing with so much new life and death - and with such casual attitudes towards death.
The fact that Thailand wishes to set up a rice cartel does not surprise me in the least.
Cartels are very popular in Thailand as a way to keep prices above local market rates. You will find that in any locality, prices for various services will be about the same. For example, massage shop owners will get together to set prices, and individual shops will not break the cartel.
At the stands where the motorbike taxi drivers congregate and gossip, they egg each other on to charge higher prices. If you find a guy riding around on his own, he will likely offer a lower price but not when he is with his mates.
Whenever I exit the local airport, I am always given an over-inflated price to get home by drivers with no meters in their taxis. It is pointless asking other drivers for a better price because they have all agreed on the price and won't settle for anything less - a cartel.
While on a visa run to Penang a few years ago, I ran into a British guy who owned a travel business on Koh Tao and he told me that all the businesses and diving operations on the island had done the same thing.
Prospective customers have the option to pay the cartel price or go without. It works but it's not exactly how a free market economy should work, and it's not exactly fair. However, it's Thailand.